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JAPAN PONDERS ITS RICHES WITH EMBARRASSMENT

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The postwar high the Japanese yen reached against the dollar last week demonstrates the degree to which Japan has become the sorcerer's apprentice of international trade and finance. The money has kept piling up despite efforts to control the flow. It has reached the point that the trade minister, Michio Watanabe, acknowledged that Japan's accumulation of wealth is ''a pleasant and, at the same time, an embarrassing thing.''

The steady appreciation of the yen over the last six months should slow but hardly halt this accumulation. Trade surpluses - nearly $50 billion against the United States in 1985 -may shrink, but they will remain large. Japan has so much money to invest that it is the largest creditor nation, with a portfolio of foreign securities that expanded by $54.4 billion last year. Thanks to cheaper oil and a stronger yen, Japan can easily withstand a sudden export decline because its overall import bill may drop 10 percent or more.

Money, however, has not bought happiness. There is among Japanese a persistent pessimism, a belief that if things are good they will not stay that way for long. This sentiment was reinforced as the yen rose last week in a speculative foreign exchange market. At one point, it took only 174.60 yen to buy a dollar, one-third less than the 262 yen required a year ago. While the Government and business leaders in the United States proclaimed their happiness, Japanese officials fretted. At midweek, the Bank of Japan was believed to have grown sufficiently concerned to intervene, buying dollars to bolster their value and nudge the American currency away from its record low.

The worry here is that Japanese products, because they cost more, will be hurt in the main export market, the United States. Toyota has twice raised car prices, by a total of 7 percent, to maintain profit margins. Sony's prices have gone up 5 to 12 percent. One Government analyst estimated that if the dollar sank to 170 yen, Japan's trade surplus would shrink by $10 billion. A smaller surplus would make it easier for Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone to avert protectionist actions in the United States and Europe. But if the yen stays powerful and exports tumble, Japan's economy could be headed for a period of little or no growth, putting Mr. Nakasone in a fiscal and political dilemma. How far should he go - or, more realistically, can he go - to stimulate the economy?

He has insisted that Japan must restructure its way of doing business, responding to foreign complaints that Japan continues to concentrate on export and capital growth, acquiring enormous sums of cash that further feed the money machine, while doing little to improve shoddy housing, inadequate sewerage and other problems. Mr. Nakasone appointed an advisory council that is expected to recommend an increase in Japan's foreign aid and housing and urban development through tax incentives and eased regulations. It is also likely that the Government, hoping to massage the economy in a hurry, will ask the Bank of Japan to lower its discount rate below the present 4 percent.

How much further is Mr. Nakasone is prepared to go? Most of the stimulatory ideas under discussion require the Government to spend more, borrow more and take in less. Yet no one has been a more vigorous preacher of fiscal austerity than the Prime Minister, as he has sought to control budget deficits that almost make President Reagan's look small. Japan must borrow 20 cents or more for every dollar it spends; its national debt amounts to 47.9 percent of the gross national product, as against 36.5 percent in the United States. It is not clear how Mr. Nakasone can manage to prime the pump and hold the line at the same time.

There is also a question of whether the huge Japanese surpluses will melt even with a weakened dollar and fortified yen. Thus far, there is no sign of a surge in imports, although foreign goods theoretically should be rolling in because they cost less. Disposable income has yet to rise because windfall profits created by cheaper oil have yet to be passed along to consumers.

Nor is it certain that suddenly higher prices have dulled the American appetite for Toyotas and Sonys. And, if all the machinations devised to date fail to close the trade gap appreciably, questions inevitably will arise whether anything can work.

A version of this article appears in print on March 23, 1986, on Page 4004002 of the National edition with the headline: JAPAN PONDERS ITS RICHES WITH EMBARRASSMENT. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe